These Are The Product Categories Amazon Shoppers Say They Buy the Most

Amazon users say they use the platform to make purchases in a wide variety of categories, but some are clearly more popular than others, according to a survey [download page] from Feedvisor. Indeed, the only product categories for which a majority of respondents reported having made purchases in the past year on Amazon were books and movies (61%) and electronics (54%).

Not too far behind, though, more than 4 in 10 reported having bought for clothing, shoes and jewelry (46%), home, kitchen and garden (44%) and personal care and beauty (44%). Somewhat surprisingly, far fewer said they’d bought toys and games (28%), which figure to be prominent this holiday season.

The report demonstrates that reviews and reputation have a strong impact on purchase behavior. For example, two-thirds of respondents would not purchase a product that had a rating lower than 3.5 stars, and 9 in 10 wouldn’t buy a product that had a rating lower than 3 stars. Further, close to 9 in 10 (87%) said that they always (58%) or sometimes (29%) check the ratings of third-party sellers when buying on Amazon. This appears to be more important than the seller’s name, which only 31% say is important to them when deciding to purchase an item.

Research from MarketingCharts indicates that online consumer reviews influence more adults’ purchases than marketing emails, and are second only to word-of-mouth and TV ads of all the purchase influencers examined. Online reviews are particularly important to Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Affluents, according to the report.

In other results from the Feedvisor survey:

Amazon Prime members (73%) are more likely than non-Prime members (63%) to trust packaged shipped by Amazon.com more than packaged shipped by a third-party sellers;

7 in 10 Prime members check prices on Amazon.com at least often before purchasing a product on a different site, compared to 56% of non-Prime members; and

58% of of Amazon users scroll past the first page of search results when searching for an item to purchase on Amazon.com (see Amazon search ranking factors here).

About the Data: The Amazon User Study 2016 was conducted by Feedvisor in partnership with Walker Sands Communications. The survey took place in Summer 2016 with a total of 1,507 participants, half of whom were Prime members and half regular Amazon customers. Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 60+.